


the half-eaten heart

by staycoolstaykind



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Creatures & Monsters, Cannibalism, Gore, M/M, Monsters, Sort Of, THE CHARACTER DEATH IS TEMPORARY
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-21
Updated: 2019-10-21
Packaged: 2020-12-27 09:14:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21116333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/staycoolstaykind/pseuds/staycoolstaykind
Summary: All couples fight.





	the half-eaten heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PrittlePrince](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrittlePrince/gifts).

The bedroom is cold. Cold enough to make the blood running through his veins slow, sluggish. So much colder than when Mark fell asleep the night before, window open and body covered in nothing but a thin sheet in an attempt to beat the sweltering summer heat he’d drifted off to. He slowly opens his eyes on an exhale just in time to see his breath fog and steam in front of him, licking his lips to feel the the skin chapped and peeling.

He feels an arm draped over his waist and his body breaks into a violent shiver.

“Mark? Go back to sleep. The sun’s not even out.”

Johnny’s voice is rough and heavy, like he’s swallowed gravel while he was sleeping. The arm he’s got draped over Mark’s waist squeezes firmly, pulling Mark tight against his larger body, unyielding. Mark shivers and resists the urge to burrow into his warmth.

"I didn't think you'd come back," Mark says, timid. He lifts a shaking hand to Johnny's forearm, gently running his fingertips against heated skin. The gentle texture of the hair on Johnny's arm grounds him, makes this all seem more real. "After...after last night."

There's a heavy silence that settles over them, almost as oppressive as the cold. At first Mark thinks he might have angered Johnny, might have dug up an old grudge best forgotten. But then Johnny squeezes him again, presses his lips to the knob of Mark's vertebrae right at the top of his spin.

"I'll always come back for you, Mark,” he swears. There's conviction in his voice. It makes Mark's stomach turn.

_That's what I was worried about,_ Mark thinks to himself as he closes his eyes and prays for sleep to drag him under once more.

But there's no mercy left for Mark Lee. Sleep evades him and he's left to face the routine of their everyday lives. The first step is to force himself out of bed and into the shower, where he quietly makes room for Johnny, who crowds him against the cool tile and kisses him until he can't help but kiss back. 

“Are you still cold?” Johnny whispers, lips brushing against Mark’s throat. “Here, I’ll warm you up.”

Once Johnny has taken his fill and Mark's nerves have been soothed by wandering hands they clean up, drying each other down and dressing for a day with no real plans other than navigating the tenuous State of Things.

In the kitchen Johnny guides Mark to sit at the table, pulling out a frying pan and starting on bacon and eggs.

"The trick is to cook it in the oven," Johnny explains, laying a wire rack on top of a baking sheet and draping thick slabs of fatty bacon over top. "It gets so much crispier, and your face isn't covered in grease when you're done." He slips the tray into the oven, nudging the door shut with his socked foot.

Mark watches him, resting his chin on his folded arms. "Johnny?"

Johnny turns, eyebrows raised. He looks so handsome in the bright sunlight of their kitchen, skin a golden olive, eyes dark and bright. His hair is still damp, swept back off of his face. "What's up?"

Another pause. Mark toils momentarily over whether or not he should say anything, whether or not he's digging his own grave by running his mouth. Unfortunately he's not the sort of person to keep his mouth shut. "Last night..." He takes a deep breath, sitting up and moving his hands to his lap, where he twists his fingers together anxiously. "We should talk about last night."

Johnny looks at him blankly for a long time. Long enough that Mark starts to feel nauseous, his nerves bubbling and roiling in his stomach. Finally he offers a soft smile, once that somehow manages to sooth Mark's fraying nerves. "Listen...Mark..."

He sits down, reaching across and offering his palms. Mark considers them for a moment before lifting his own hands, pressing them to Johnny's. "Couples go through shit, Mark," Johnny says, running his thumbs softly across Mark's knuckles. "The good news is that a battle isn't a war. We can fight and get over it. We _will_ fight and get over it."

Mark swallows, giving a jerky nod. "I—I just—I'm sorry, Johnny. I got scared. I didn't know what else to do, I didn't think, I—"

"I get it," Johnny whispers. "Trust me, I get it. And I forgive you, okay?" He lifts Mark's hands, kissing his knuckles. "Now just relax. I'll make food and we'll just spend the day chilling out."

Mark nods, and oddly enough he really does feel at ease. It's okay. Everything is alright. Last night was just a bad dream and today they'll go on like normal, living their sane, happy, normal life. He grabs his phone from the table, thumbing his passcode in and checking his messages for the day. Everything is business as usual. Donghyuck teasing him mercilessly, Yuta pining over Taeyong, Jaehyun and Doyoung bitching about each other in separate messages like none of their friends know they’re fucking. He types out a few quick responses to everyone before putting his phone back down, content to watch Johnny putter about the kitchen.

He looks up just in time to see Johnny pull a piece of leftover bacon from the package, popping it into his mouth, pink and raw. Mark looks away.

\---

"What should we do today?"

Mark is cold again.

No matter what he does he just can’t get warm, not even when Johnny pulls him close on the couch and wraps a thick blanket around his shoulders while rubbing firm hands up and down his arms. Johnny himself is like a walking furnace, and Mark tries desperately to burrow deeper, to steal whatever flame seems to be burning inside of him. At one point he goes so far as to shove his hands under Johnny’s shirt, sticking them right in his armpits in an attempt to warm up.

“Is this a come on?” Johnny teases, pressing his lips affectionately to Mark’s temple.

“I’m so fucking cold, I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” Mark whines, burrowing closer and shoving his nose against Johnny’s neck. “I must be getting sick or something.”

Johnny’s hands run up and down his back a few times before reaching up to brush through his hair. “You’re probably just getting a cold,” he says. “Want to go back to bed for a little bit?”

There’s a brief moment where Mark considers the option of laying back down, crawling back under the mountain of blankets they keep on the bed, but immediately realizes it would be way too quiet in the bedroom. Too still. He can’t handle being alone with his own thoughts right now, he needs outside distraction. 

“Let’s go out,” he announces suddenly, pushing himself off of the couch and out of Johnny’s grasp. “Get lunch or something. I don’t want to be stuck indoors all day.” Immediately he gets to his feet and heads to the door to grab his keys, giving Johnny no time to argue or try to talk him out of it before he’s stepping into his shoes.

Johnny just watches in amusement for a few moments, a fond smile on his face. Finally he stands, moving for his own boots. 

“Whatever you want, Marky.”

\---

They find a cafe they’ve never been to before, a place that sells soups and sandwiches with a perfect little patio to sit on. Mark finally feels himself warming up as he works through a steaming bowl of tomato soup, tearing off pieces of bread and dunking them before shoving them in his mouth.

Across the table Johnny is watching him with the same bemused smile as before, barely touching the burger sitting in front of him. “Hungry?”

“Always,” Mark snorts, grabbing his napkin and dragging it across his lips. “You’re not?”

Johnny looks down at his burger, shrugging. “I am, I just don’t think I’m in the mood for this,” he says absently. “I don’t know what I want.”

Mark lets out an involuntary shudder but does his best to play it off. “Well you need to eat something,” he insists. “Want some of this?”

Johnny wrinkles his nose. “Nah. I’ll be fine, just enjoy your lunch.”

It doesn’t really help to put Mark at ease, but there’s no point in starting an argument over it. Besides, after a few minutes of sitting in silence Johnny manages to make himself eat, taking the burger out of the bun and pushing all the toppings to the side before tearing off little bits of meat with his fingers. He manages to finish the burger and half of his fries, which definitely makes Mark feel a bit better.

Once they’ve paid and they’re back on the street Johnny looks around, hands tucked in his pockets. “Where to next?”

“Dunno,” Mark says, glancing in either direction. “Let’s just...start walking, see where we end up.”

They end up spending their day wandering. Most of the afternoon involves them popping in and out of the various small businesses that make up the downtown core, spending a particular amount of time at the place that sells used video games. They leave with bags full of stuff, Mark chattering about Devil May Cry and how he’s been meaning to play the series for ages.

“How am I already hungry again?”

Mark turns to Johnny, eyebrow raised. “You didn’t eat much of your lunch,” he says slowly. “You really only picked at it. Do you want to grab something else?”

Johnny makes a face, shrugging. “Nah. I don’t really know what I’m in the mood for.”

There’s no point in pushing, he’ll speak up when he figures it out. They go back to meandering through town, ending up at the park sitting on the edge of the city. They’ve been here plenty of times before, when Johnny was a cool kid skateboarding with his friends and Mark was a teenage nerd obsessed with his every move.

It feels like it was ages ago that they were those kids. Back then they had so little to worry about. Mark could spend his days watching Johnny skate around the park, grinding off of curbs and park benches and annoying the old people that came to watch birds. He remembers the first time they kissed, standing in the gazebo not too far from the park entrance while rain fell in sheets from the sky. Johnny’s lips had been cold in the chilly fall wind, and Mark’s hands had trembled while he reached up to touch Johnny’s face.

That was years ago. Now they’ve got their own place. A car. A cat. 

“What are you thinking about?” Johnny asks quietly, slipping his hand into Mark’s. His thumb brushes over Mark’s knuckles, soothing his skin with reverent touches.

Mark can’t help but smile softly. “The first time we kissed. I was just barely eighteen and you immediately had a crisis over me being younger than you.”

“Yeah, and I wouldn’t even look in your direction again until you turned twenty,” Johnny said, grinning sheepishly. “You were patient.”

Mark shrugs, squeezing Johnny’s hand. “It was worth it.”

And it was. Still is. Even now, even with everything they’ve been through in the last few weeks, even with the unpleasantness last night, every moment Mark has ever gotten to spend with Johnny has been worth all the bullshit. He’d do it all again in a heartbeat, no matter what happens to them from this moment forward.

He’s about to say so when he’s interrupted by the sound of wheels against pavement, followed by a swift blow to his back. He barely sees the teenager whizzing past on his skateboard as he hits the ground, hard enough that his palms scrape against the pavement of the sidewalk.

“What the fuck?” Johnny growls, immediately taking off after the kid to do...god knows what, but Mark doesn’t really want to find out. He scrambles to his feet, watching the retreating back of his boyfriend as he chases the laughing teenager down the path and out of sight.

“Fuck...fuck!” Mark hisses, scrambling quickly to his feet and brushing himself off. He peers past the dim glow of streetlamps and moonlight to catch a glimpse of Johnny, but he’s nowhere to be found. All he can do is set off after him, the soles of his shoes pounding against the ground as he gives chase.

There’s a little path deep in the heart of the park, a tunnel of trees and brush that lead to hiking trails and hidden places that Mark has come to know all too well in the past few weeks. The minute he sees the entrance winding away into the night he can feel something tugging him towards it, no matter how much he wants to turn and run in the other direction. With a shaking breath he opens the flashlight app on his camera and plunges into the oppressive dark.

Mark has never been afraid of the woods. Even the things he ought to be afraid of he doesn’t fear, the hissing snakes and hungry animals with sharp teeth that would make a meal of him without a second thought. He’s aware of the danger, respects it, but he’s not afraid. Because he understands it. Why should he tremble and shake at the idea of something that behaves the way it’s supposed to?

It’s the unknown that frightens Mark. The outliers. The unexplainable.

His feet crunch down on dried leaves and broken branches, announcing his approach with every step he takes. What he’s seeking he doesn’t want to sneak up on. 

“Johnny?” he calls, as soft as possible. There’s no benefit in alerting half the town to their presence out here in the woods. “Johnny! Are you back here?”

He thinks for a second that he hears something scrambling to his right, but when he stops to listen everything is silent and still. He pushes forward. Step after step, plunging into the inky blackness of midnight, the moon and stars blotted out by the thick trees that crowd the sky overhead. He’s starting to think that maybe he got it wrong. That for once his intuition has failed him, led him down the wrong path. 

Then he hears it.

The soft sounds of sobbing, wet and pathetic, just up ahead. And something underneath that. Something slick and low, something hungry. Something wrong.

Mark’s heart trembles in his chest as he starts walking faster, right in the direction of the horrible sounds. The flashlight sweeps left and right, searching, casting everything in impersonal white light. The lush greens of the woods look wrong under such sterile illumination. Even worse is what he stumbles on twenty more feet down the path.

Mark stops cold, pursing his lips together and swallowing hard. He shakes his head, eyes wide and horrified, and for a long moment that’s all he can do.

Johnny looks up from where he’s kneeling on the ground, a pathetic sort of confusion in his eyes. His face is filthy, covered in dirt and blood and chunks of something Mark doesn’t want to consider. “I’m so hungry, Mark.”

Laying on the ground before him is what remains of the teenager. He’s nothing more than meat now. His face, so recently flushed and healthy and alive as it smirked back at them, is twisted in a mask of horror and pain. What isn’t covered in his own viscera is a sickly sort of greenish-white, his blood nearly black where it’s bubbled past his lips and dripped down his chin. He’s still. Morbidly, terribly still. 

It gets worse the lower Mark’s eyes travel. 

His shirt is torn away, revealing a torso ripped open and pulled apart. Mark can see right through to his ribs. His ribs, some of which have been bent back and snapped clean off, cast aside to get them out of the way. Organs that Mark can’t name without the use of an anatomy book lay strewn along the floor except for his heart, which is…

“Johnny,” Mark breathes, mouth dry. “What are we going to do with you?”

Johnny gently puts the half-eaten heart back in the boy’s chest cavity as if that might suddenly bring him back to life. He stands, drawing the back of his hand across his mouth.

“Mark…” he says, reaching out a hang covered in gore.

All Mark can do is shake his head, scrubbing his hands over his face as if that might erase what he’s seen. “We have to get out of here,” he mutters, blinking hard a few times to clear his vision. “We’ve gotta...people still come out here at night, we have to go.”

Johnny nods, kicking at the body to push it off the side of the path. Mark tries desperately not to hear the slick, wet slide of a corpse being moved. “Where are we going?” he asks sullenly, as if he has any right to be pouting right now.

“Deeper into the woods, there’s...there’s something I need to see.”

They start walking, Mark’s phone flashlight once more lighting the way for them as they move deeper into the woods. They hit the place where the underbrush starts to get thicker, the trails less obvious and the foliage denser. Mark knows where he’s going, though. He’s been here before. So he presses on, the soft crunch and shuffle of Johnny’s steps behind him ensuring that he’s still following close behind.

“Are we going to talk about this?” Johnny asks quietly after ten minutes of silence. Mark can feel it as Johnny reaches forward, his fingertips brushing along Mark’s lower back. “Say something, Mark.”

Mark swallows hard, shivers erupting along his spine at the simple touch. Johnny is warm, even warmer than before as someone else’s blood pumps through his veins. “You’re...you’re covered in...,” he stammers, trying not to choke and gag with each inhale. The air smells thick, like iron on his tongue. “I don’t know what you want me to say.” 

“Just...say something. Anything.” Johnny sounds desperate, not something Mark is used to. Johnny is usually the rock, the port in a storm. But now he’s the storm itself, pulling Mark loose of his moorings, dragging him out to see and under the breaking waves. 

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” Mark repeats, a hollow laugh bubbling up from his chest and bursting from his lips. It’s mirthless, devoid of any sort of joy. “Are we...is this how I’m supposed to find you every night now? Is this what I’m supposed to be okay with, Johnny?”

“Couples go through rough spo—”

“This isn’t a rough spot, John,” Mark snaps, hands curling into fists at his sides. “You’re...you’re different now, and I don’t know how to deal with this sort of different.” He breathes in again, chokes on the scent. “Can you...wipe your face or something?”

They keep walking until the trees thin out once more and they come to a small clearing. The moon finally breaks through the canopy of leaves, enough that Mark can turn off his flashlight, tucking his phone into his back pocket. Everything is pretty much the way he left it last night; the shovel is still stuck into the soft earth in the middle of the clearing, the grass is lush and green and slightly damp from the humid evening air.

The only real difference is the grave in the middle of the field. Last night it had been a small mound of dirt, neatly packed to cover where Johnny had lain. Now it’s disrupted, an empty hole waiting once more to be filled.

Johnny walks over slowly, standing at the foot of the grave. “Last night…” He coughs softly, body remembering the way dirt and stone had filled his mouth, packing into his lungs. 

“You weren’t supposed to come back,” Mark says softly. “You can’t...you can’t live like this, Johnny. I can’t be complicit in watching you devour everything around you.” He stops, swallowing hard. “What happens when there’s no one left but me? Do I wait until you’re so hungry that I’m the only thing that can satisfy the craving?” He steps closer, watching Johnny with curious eyes. “Who am I supposed to go to for help? This...this isn’t how reality is supposed to work.”

Johnny sighs, shoving his hands in his pockets. His once white shirt is now a reddish-brown, stained with blood and other viscera. “I don’t know, Mark. I don’t know how this started, or what I did. All I know is that I love you, and I believe we can find some way to figure this out.” He smiles softly. “So let’s just...go home, okay? Let’s go home and go to bed and when we wake up in the morning we can figure out some sort of game plan.”

“I love you, Johnny.”

He sighs in relief. “I love you too, Mark.”

He turns with hope in his eyes, pulling his hands from his pockets and beginning to reach for Mark. He turns with the thought that maybe they can move on from this, maybe Mark can learn to live with the monster Johnny has become.

He turns just in time for Mark to swing the shovel.

\---

The next morning Mark wakes to his breath turning to vapour in the air before him and a too-warm arm draped over his hip.

“Go back to sleep, Mark. The sun’s not even out.”

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was a practice in keeping it short and keeping it spooky. I've actually been pretty nervous to post this so I hope you enjoy it!
> 
> [twt](https://twitter.com/alleywhomst)


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